


Lack of Colour

by aceholmes



Series: Johnlock Oneshots [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkward Flirting, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 05:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4378427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceholmes/pseuds/aceholmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I'm working on this painting and you just stopped me from drinking out of my dirty water cup'</p><p>art student au in which Sherlock should probably take a break before his brain melts, and John should really get on with his work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lack of Colour

**Author's Note:**

> I've honest to God had writer's block for coming up to a year now; I've tried multichapter fics and they've just fallen flat. GCSEs + crappy mental health = no chance to post  
> Also! this is based on a prompt from tumblr but I can't find it! If anyone finds it I'd love it if you could send me the link so that I can post it. It was one prompt out of many awesome art school ones.

'Ugh.'

_If I take the bristles out of this paint brush, the metal at the end may just be sharp enough to stab him with._

'Jesus fucking Christ.'

_Alternatively, if I were to snap the wood, it would be sharp enough to smoothly pierce his skin, but the splinters would be messy and weak._

'Huh.'

Sherlock Holmes was not a social person. He spent as much time as he could alone, or at least in an environment where he wouldn't be required to deal with other human beings too much; it wasn't that he was shy, not at all. Really, if he hadn't favoured other areas of the arts, he would have made a shameless performer. Trying to communicate with idiots just tended to draw the same reactions from Sherlock that painting was triggering in his fellow art student. And everyone was an idiot.

Honestly, what was this guy thinking? His proportions were all wrong, and by the looks of things he damn well knew it. If he'd have cared for this man's wellbeing, he may have gone and helped him, but he didn't. Besides, this moron specialised in sculpture, not painting. A total lost cause.

Plopping his brush (and almost murder weapon) down into his water cup, Sherlock hurried to fetch his headphones before the stranger spewed out any more mundane nonsense. Thank God for modern technology, making ignoring people easier one step at a time. He needed human distraction like a hole in the head, and the blissful blanket sound of Johann Sebastian Bach humming out of his earbuds acted as the perfect wall between him and his canvas, and the ridiculous outside world. Cool acrylic against the rough fabric of the canvas. Souring, elegant violin notes. Muffled shouts from outside his wonderful bubble.

'Damn this leg!'

* * *

 

John Watson was feeling particularly homicidal.

Although, his most venomous feelings were reserved for the stupid painting, and the stupid model, and this stupid fucking art degree. And to think he'd even considered medical school, when here he was, completely perplexed by basic human anatomy. Some doctor he'd have made. It was a miracle he knew the arse from the elbow. Growling, he leant back on his stool, praying to whatever deity was hanging around at the time that he'd fall off, knock himself unconscious, and wake up with just a smidgen more artistic skill.

His neighbour didn't help his mood either; clearly he'd accidentally ended up in the studio with a freakishly talented art nut, not that it was hard when you were on a fine art course. Delicate paint strokes cut across a grimy canvas; flicks of reds and blacks and purples etching out the curves and valves of the human heart, with an aorta filled with loopy, scrappy script. Jagged lines in gloopy ink, blotting and thinning, marking out chemical equations that even John, who was certainly more familiar with the sciences than your average dreadlocked, weed smoking art kid was, didn't recognise.

'Come on, Watson. If you can make the human form out of cardboard and egg boxes, you can bloody well paint it,' he hissed to himself, because at one point his prep talks were going to work. They were. The tip of his paint brush wobbled before his eyes, the complex muscle system that moved his hand (abductor pollicis bevis, vincula longa, flexor retinaculum) going taut and useless. Nope. He needed tea and a shower; too much caffeine would make the shaking worse, but John was too wound up to see sense at this point. He just had to get away.

 

* * *

 

'Thanks for the advice, Mike, I'll be sure not to follow it.'

John hadn't gone back to the studio for a fair few hours, and he was only coming back now (at a frankly stupid hour) because he'd left most of the junk he needed for tomorrow's classes here with the painting from hell. He had meant to return and work some more, he really had. But then he'd got talking with the lads in his dorm, and walking across campus took even longer than usually when there was something you were procrastinating. Greg Lestrade had needed help in the dark room and what kind of monster left a mate alone to struggle with chemicals and hazardously slippery film? A terrible one, that's what. It was a Tom and Jerry style accident that was just waiting to happen. More recently, Mike had given him some useless tips on painting, but the bastard did as much as he possibly could in the most agonisingly boring medium, water colour. So anything he'd said was immediately dismissed as bollocks.

Shockingly, the university's answer to Da Vinci was still hunched over his own work, earbuds in, brush gliding effortlessly in exquisite strokes. What had that guy been listening to for so long? John was tempted to ask, or just tap on his shoulder to see that he wasn't in some bizarre, hypotonic trance. His interest was not at all linked to how potentially pretty this man may or may not have been. The male thing wasn't an issue, and hadn't been in the past either, but seriously? Taking an hour to cross campus, that was reasonable procrastination, but hitting on someone? That seemed a little heavy handed, and misjudged, and something John was a hundred percent down for right now.

It wasn't like it was a desperate thing. Anguished or not, he could see how handsome his canvas comrade was; thick inky curls (flecked with pinks and blues and white) looped over his face before running up, sticking up at odd angles as they are bundled into a ping pong ball sized hair bun. John couldn't have said what was so intriguing about it. He really couldn't. It was dreadful, really. His dad had installed all his military smartness into him, and this regimented instinct was often in conflict with the part of him that drew meaning from coils of copper, or lived off chicken nuggets with his oddball friends. And here, here all secondhand military composure was losing.

'I'll just pick up my things, then...'

_I hope he doesn't think I'm talking to him._

John inhaled, swiping up brushes and palettes whilst refusing to fully focus on the nasty blob in front of him. Instead, he let his eyes sneak over to the other student. Down over the smooth porcelain skin of his neck, the smooth planes underneath his flimsy oversized shirt. Spidery fingers, with one set working tirelessly on the brush, the other reaching down to grasp the circumference of his cup of what must have been nice fresh water, before the paint turned it a lively shade of swamp water brown. They curled right around the glass before lifting it up to his-

'No!' John reached out, grabbing the cup out from his clutches. 'No, God, you do not want to drink that.'

His heroics were rewarded by a mutinous glare, which would have unsettled John (the man's eyes were certainly unsettling) if the git didn't have streaks of red paint across his cheek that made him look like a terrible clown.

'What?' Earbuds were being removed now, so John guessed he'd got what he wanted. A chance to talk to the mystery man.

'You were about to drink that. I think you got it mixed up with the coffee next to it.'

'Drink what?'

John jingled the grotesque cup in his hand; the murky liquid sloshed about menacingly.

'This delicious painty cocktail. Have you got painter's brain?'

'Painter's brain?'

'It's what I call it when you're painting for too long, and you forget that anything else exists. But then the painting goes all fuzzy and your limbs just start to move on autopilot.'

'Uh, yes. In that case, yes.' He blinked, physically pulling away from his work. 'Thank you for the professional diagnosis, Doctor...'

'Watson. Well, obviously not Doctor Watson. You can call me John though. My name's John.'

'Sherlock,' the artist offered in reply, but it was more of an end to the conversation than a continuation of it, since he began to dab his brush on the explosion of gothic colour that was his palette.

'I'm sorry?'

A truly heartfelt sigh of exasperation. 'That's my name. Sherlock Holmes.'

'Wow, with a name like that you were born to be an art student. Were you born with the man bun too?'

'The what?'

'Your hair.'

'Oh.'

Sherlock's free fingers came up to clutch at the lump of hair, threading their way through dark knots and flyaway strands; he turned to face John, ethereal features pointed and distinguished. John gulped.

'Hair cuts are tedious, but long hair gets in the way.'

'Hence the man bun.'

Sherlock's face consorted in confusion. 'You don't need to gender my hair, John. It's just a bun.'

'Yeah, but you seem to be a man, unless you're not. It's just... it's just a term. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were going to be touchy about it. I won't mention it again.'

'I'm not touchy about it.'

'Good, because you shouldn't be. It looks, it looks nice. Suits you.'

'I...' Sherlock's eyes wandered off with the rest of his sentence, resting on the embarrassment that was John's painting from hell. He cleared his throat.

'You're procrastinating going back to your dorm. Why?'

'Can't I just be enjoying the company on a lonely Friday night?'

'You're feeling guilty for not working on that, aren't you?'

John deflated. 'Uh, just a bit.'

'It's not entirely terrible, I suppose.'

'I'm flattered.'

'You're more of a sculptor, aren't you?'

'How did you know that?'

Sherlock had the decency to look a little put out, his eyes widening like a deer in the headlights. 'I can tell. How about I...no.'

'How about you what?' John had narrowed his eyes to regard his new friend with suspicion.

'No, never mind.'

'Hey, you're the one that should be being nice to me after what you've said about my painting.'

'Oh, for God's sakes! How about I help you?'

 

 

* * *

 

 

_What the hell are you doing, Holmes?_

Sherlock had been fully prepared to ignore the distressed student, honestly. He'd have to admit, thought, that he may or may not have changed his mind after actually looking at the boy - John, he'd said his name was.

John was a much too mundane name. Yes, so he sounded like your typical student, and perhaps on the surface he was just that, and yet there was a crack in his ordinary shell from which gold light leaked out as a golden crest of hair. Despite being perhaps only a year older than Sherlock, John's face was an intriguing map of creases and grooves. Laughter lines quirked as he considered Sherlock's offer.

'You'd do that? It is, um, nearly eleven now. Don't you want to sleep?'

_More muscular than your typical art student. Secondary school rugby career. Exploits physical strength to work with heavy materials: wood, metal, plastics._

'I don't sleep much anyway. Why? Are you going to go back to your dorm?'

'Ha, yeah. Probably only to stay up staring at my ceiling.'

_Splinters and scratches on hands and forearms; must have got them recently. Recent wooden constructions seen around campus include:_

  * _new foyer on the west wing - unimportant and irrelevant,_
  * _dreadful installation piece on the main green, deliberately ridiculously abstract and obtrusive,_
  * _spiral shaped piece composed of tree bark, showcasing order and practical structure - kept outside for both practicality and to allow nature to begin to claim it._



Sherlock was pleased to deduce that John was the father of the latter; contrary to his usual tastes, he'd found he quite liked the structure when he'd seen it, although it was a little too grubby for him. Meeting the artist behind it certainly explained that. Sherlock couldn't imagine someone like John being kept indoors behind an easel or bent over a sketch book. It raised the question of why he was even trying in the first place.

'That's settled, then,' Sherlock announced, finding his body lifting off his stool; moving to actually help another person. Mycroft would have a heart attack, although that was only a matter of time.

'Seriously?'

'I'll just help you with the anatomy. I can't actually paint for you.'

'Yeah, I'm perfectly familiar with people's bodies, thanks - no, wait, I mean...'

'I know. Your dad's a doctor, isn't he?' '

How did you know that?'

Sherlock just huffed. Whatever it was that was drawing him towards John (he refused to consider some of the more ordinary, human theories) was stronger that the momentary anger he felt at himself for his own clumsy social graces. Well, if he was going to be a prick, he may as well find a way to roll with it.

'Maybe I'll tell you later. Now, starting with the shoulder. Nobody's shoulder works like that.'

'The model's did!' John gestured violently at the tatty photograph perked in front of the canvas.

'Did it? Look closer.' Sherlock leant forward, narrowing the gap between them, his finger touching John's on the paper.

'Oh, God. You're definitely right.'

Straightening up, Sherlock allowed himself to study John's anguished features, drinking in the handsomeness of that face, with its tanning skin and slight stubble. He chewed on yet another stupid idea. If this failed, couldn't he just put his actions down to 'painter's brain'?

'John.'

'Hm?'

Elongated fingers jittered just above the fabric of John's wooden jumper. 'May I? It may help to be familiar with the positioning yourself.'

'...Okay.'

John met Sherlock's gaze as they made contact; Sherlock tried but couldn't manage to tell himself that he'd imagined the intensity in his fellow student's eyes, not with all the evidence that pointed to the contrary. He brought John's arm across his short, stocky torso, before slowing running his fingers across the muscular bumps and rivets of his shoulder.

'Teres minor, teres major, and that's how the clavicle would move. Do you see how this works?'

'I'm beginning to see how something might work,' John breathed, his low tone running like treacle through the thick atmosphere, heavy with a kind of tension that was best unlabelled. 'Not sure how this is supposed help me paint, though.'

Sherlock ignored his valid point. 'The hip's wrong, too. Would-'

John had cut him off by taking hold of his free wrist, circling it gently in calloused fingers; a gasp bubbled in Sherlock's mouth and he fought to swallow it down.

'Uh, no. You have to at least take me out for coffee before you get to feel me up any further. I'm not like your other girls.'

'Feel you up?' John fixed him with a challenging look, as if to say _'tell me this isn't what is happening here, I dare you.'_

'Besides, it's unfair that you're the only one that gets to do the groping.'

'I wouldn't exactly call this groping, per se.'

'Oh, wouldn't you? Not yet?'

_This is definitely him flirting back._

'I know, erm, I know a place.'

'Oh, you do, do you?'

'There's a café just out of campus that's open late. For that coffee I have to buy you.'

'Mister Holmes,' John laughed slowly, leaning back to fetch Sherlock's phone for him; he held it out to him, waiting for him to reach out and take it, much like what was being offered now. 'Are you asking me out on a date?'

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not an art student, although I have family members who were. My other excuse for my mistakes (and generally the entire thing) is that I'm an idiot. 
> 
> Fun fact: John's sculpture is based on one I saw at an exhibition in London; man, art galleries are lovely. 
> 
> (I have painted to the point I thought I couldn't see colour properly though, but maybe I was just super tired)
> 
> My tumblr: delightedjohn


End file.
